I consider it a pretty essential part of my work & business: building relationships with people I’ve worked with, with new people who work in similar fields as me and in general having access to a large and diverse network of professionals across industries, countries, etc to rely on when needed. Working as an independent advisor, having access to such a network is also essential to be able to provide clients with the expertise they are looking for if this goes beyond what I can offer on my own.

I’m not alone in thinking like this, of course, and in the Netherlands there are lots of networking clubs and events. Despite that, during lunch last summer, Eun-mi Postma and I concluded that we were missing something in the midst of all these different networking possibilities.

Many networking clubs for young and/or starting entrepreneurs bring together a broad group of people, from graphic designers to stylist and business consultants. Yet, we were looking for something a little more focused on our common theme: Asia.

Many of the Asia networking opportunities bring together a variety of people such as export managers, CEO’s, government representatives and while these are (for me) very valuable events to attend it can be hard to find younger, like-minded entrepreneurs in this group to share experiences with or to build a network on of professionals to collaborate with.

So this is when and why Absolute Asia was born. It intends to be a networking platform aiming to bring together (young/starting) entrepreneurs in the Netherlands with a focus on Asia. But within those broad parameters anyone is welcome, so our last event included people working on design, higher education, film, branding, sustainability, urban development and covering a large part of the Asian region.

Curious and interested to join? We are hosting another event next week, February 20th, in Amsterdam.